Introduction to Developmental Psychology
Antisocial Behaviour in Childhood
Have you ever…
Lost your temper?
Argued with or annoyed others?
Physically fought others?
Destroyed others’ property?
Taken others’ property?
Antisocial behaviour
Behaviours that include excessive verbal and physical aggression, lying, stealing,
disobedience, rule breaking and violence.
o Overt or covert behaviours – things that are obvious over things that are
hidden
o Reactive (impulsive) or proactive (premeditated)
o Relational (spreading rumours about someone) or physical (attacking
someone)
There is a scale of people who have done some sort of antisocial behaviour.
Small group of people would be classified as having conduct disorder – this includes
people doing persistent antisocial behaviour that have severe consequences.
People below this would be seen as having conduct problems.
What is conduct disorder?
Angry, irritable mood, argumentative and defiant behaviour, vindictiveness for at
least 6 months (has to be consistent)
Persistent pattern of behaviour in which basic rights of others or major age-
appropriate norms or rules are violated over at least 6 months
o Aggression to people or animals
o Destruction of property
o Deceitfulness or theft
o Serious rule violations
Classifying them on the basis that it harms other people.
The level of disruption caused by these problems must impact on the child’s
functioning – causes problems at school and the way they are in the community
Callous-unemotional traits
A lack of guilt or remorse, a lack of concern for others, shallow emotions and a lack
of concern for performance (Frick et al., 2014).
o An aggressive subgroup of children with CD (<50% of children with CD) –
traits are seen in around 50% of children who have conduct disorder
o High instrumental aggression – using other people, manipulating them to get
you way
, o High pre-meditated aggression – planning out how you are going to harm
someone
Can be observed from early childhood (age 3)
CU traits are heritable (50%) (Viding et al. 2013) – twin studies
Those diagnosed are later likely to be classified as a psychopath in adulthood
Epidemiology of Conduct Disorder
Anti-social behaviour peaked between the ages of 2 and 3 – the terrible twos are
very much a thing.
The anti-social behaviour decreases around the ages of 3 and 4
Aggression is common in early childhood (Alink et al., 2006)
Behaviour problems are most common reason for referral to children’s mental
health services (Scott, 2015)
Conduct disorder occurs in 5-8% of the population (Scott, 2015)
More common in boys than girls (3:1)
Childhood/early onset life-course persistent – have worse outcomes in terms of
employment and education etc. Seen to be more serious
Adolescent onset/limited – tails off in adulthood
Social information processing
Encoding differences
o Abnormal activation of the amygdala when viewing fearful faces
o Focus on only certain parts of a situation
o They were asked to label the gender of faces while having an fMRI
o They found that those with conduct disorder and high levels of CU traits
showed no brain activity when fearful faces were shown which suggests
that they were unable to recognise the emotion shown by the person
Representation differences
o Problems with understanding thoughts and feelings of those around you
o Limited support for theory of mind (perspective taking) deficit
o Less accurate at labelling fearful and sad faces but not disgust, anger or
happiness
o More likely to attribute hostile intentions to others in ambiguous
situations – would say that it was a purposeful action.
Antisocial Behaviour in Childhood
Have you ever…
Lost your temper?
Argued with or annoyed others?
Physically fought others?
Destroyed others’ property?
Taken others’ property?
Antisocial behaviour
Behaviours that include excessive verbal and physical aggression, lying, stealing,
disobedience, rule breaking and violence.
o Overt or covert behaviours – things that are obvious over things that are
hidden
o Reactive (impulsive) or proactive (premeditated)
o Relational (spreading rumours about someone) or physical (attacking
someone)
There is a scale of people who have done some sort of antisocial behaviour.
Small group of people would be classified as having conduct disorder – this includes
people doing persistent antisocial behaviour that have severe consequences.
People below this would be seen as having conduct problems.
What is conduct disorder?
Angry, irritable mood, argumentative and defiant behaviour, vindictiveness for at
least 6 months (has to be consistent)
Persistent pattern of behaviour in which basic rights of others or major age-
appropriate norms or rules are violated over at least 6 months
o Aggression to people or animals
o Destruction of property
o Deceitfulness or theft
o Serious rule violations
Classifying them on the basis that it harms other people.
The level of disruption caused by these problems must impact on the child’s
functioning – causes problems at school and the way they are in the community
Callous-unemotional traits
A lack of guilt or remorse, a lack of concern for others, shallow emotions and a lack
of concern for performance (Frick et al., 2014).
o An aggressive subgroup of children with CD (<50% of children with CD) –
traits are seen in around 50% of children who have conduct disorder
o High instrumental aggression – using other people, manipulating them to get
you way
, o High pre-meditated aggression – planning out how you are going to harm
someone
Can be observed from early childhood (age 3)
CU traits are heritable (50%) (Viding et al. 2013) – twin studies
Those diagnosed are later likely to be classified as a psychopath in adulthood
Epidemiology of Conduct Disorder
Anti-social behaviour peaked between the ages of 2 and 3 – the terrible twos are
very much a thing.
The anti-social behaviour decreases around the ages of 3 and 4
Aggression is common in early childhood (Alink et al., 2006)
Behaviour problems are most common reason for referral to children’s mental
health services (Scott, 2015)
Conduct disorder occurs in 5-8% of the population (Scott, 2015)
More common in boys than girls (3:1)
Childhood/early onset life-course persistent – have worse outcomes in terms of
employment and education etc. Seen to be more serious
Adolescent onset/limited – tails off in adulthood
Social information processing
Encoding differences
o Abnormal activation of the amygdala when viewing fearful faces
o Focus on only certain parts of a situation
o They were asked to label the gender of faces while having an fMRI
o They found that those with conduct disorder and high levels of CU traits
showed no brain activity when fearful faces were shown which suggests
that they were unable to recognise the emotion shown by the person
Representation differences
o Problems with understanding thoughts and feelings of those around you
o Limited support for theory of mind (perspective taking) deficit
o Less accurate at labelling fearful and sad faces but not disgust, anger or
happiness
o More likely to attribute hostile intentions to others in ambiguous
situations – would say that it was a purposeful action.
